6.1.1 Monitoring of funded projects

Designing and implementing a system for common reporting and monitoring of the individual projects financed by joint calls may be a challenging task. Each participating funding agency will have their specific reporting and monitoring requirements. In order to gather information on the progress and the final outcome of the trans-national/trans regional project as a whole, there is a need for common reporting from the project in addition to eventual national reporting from each project participant to its national funding agency.

The common reporting and the national reporting should be coordinated as much as possible to the benefit for the project participants.
This can be achieved by collecting indicators at ERA-NET level and comparing these indicators with information that is already collected routinely at the national/regional levels.

In the last years an impressive variety of successful ERA-NET call procedures have been established. However, only a few ERA-NETs have developed systems for common reporting from the projects financed from the joint calls.

These guidelines are intended to be a help for ERA-NETs in setting up a system for common reporting of the projects. In the preparation of the guidelines, we have gathered information from ERA-NET coordinators on the reporting systems already in use. Lists of indicators and templates for periodical and final reporting from projects financed by joint calls are found in the online version. These templates can be used by ERA-NETs, or adapted to fit your specific needs.

A system of common reporting must be seen in relation to what is required as national reporting by the different funding agencies participating in the joint call. Double reporting and increase of bureaucratic burdens for the project participants and the funding agencies should be avoided as much as possible. The funding mode chosen for the joint call will have an important impact on how the reporting and monitoring system for the call can be made.

If a common reporting system comes in addition to national reporting, it is important that the common reporting and monitoring focuses in particular on the added value of the cooperation in the project, and with a strong emphasis on the total outcome if the national reporting is focusing on each project participant´s work. Indicators of this added value of cooperation may vary according to what kind of research is supported. The importance of this added value of cooperation is reflected in the example templates in the toolbox ERA-NETs may want to modify this to their specific needs by using its own indicators.

Most of the joint calls in ERA-NETs have so far been funded according to the principles of virtual common pot. As all project participants in the financed projects will have separate contracts with their national or regional funding agencies, progress reports and final reports from each project participant to their funding agency will be a part of the obligations in the contracts. These separate reports will often cover only parts of the total project, often related to the specific tasks that each project participant is doing in the project. In order to monitor the progress and final outcome of the project as a whole, there is a need for systems of common reporting also for joint calls with distributed pots/virtual common pots. Some ERA-NETs have such common reporting in place, in addition to the national reporting from each project participant to their respective funding agency.

For joint calls where there is only one contract – between the project coordinator and the ERA-NET secretariat or call coordinator – the reporting will be common for the whole project. This will be the case for joint calls with real common pot, but also calls with mixed mode can have such a system. That means that the participating funding agencies will leave the task of collecting reports to a call secretariat acting on their behalf.

Common reporting and monitoring should take into account the requirements in the participating funding agencies. If a common reporting and monitoring system can include all requirements of all participating funding agencies, in principle a common system could replace the national systems. The information requested will in most cases be very similar from all participating funding agencies, and possibilities of making one single reporting system that covers the needs of all the participating funding agencies should be explored. If such a total integration is not possible, parts of the common reports, such as Publishable Abstract and Publishable Summary, can be used by each project participant in his/her national reporting. In order to make the reporting easier for the project participants, an annex to the reporting template explaining the reporting requirements of each can be prepared by the ERA-NET.

Harmonisation of reporting and monitoring requirements should not be restricted to ERA-NETs and national systems. Many of the participants in projects financed by joint calls in ERA-NETs will also be participants in FP7 projects, or will be participating in such projects at a later stage. There may be good reasons to work for harmonisation also with the FP7 reporting and monitoring system. The reporting and monitoring requirements accepted by the Commission should be sufficient for most of the participating funding agencies. Harmonization with FP7 requirement will also ensure easier access to comparable statistics in ERA. Finally – when an ERA-NET evolves into ERA-NET+ or other kind of joint programming including Commission R&D funding - the FP7 requirements will have to be fulfilled. It is consequently rational to establish common reporting systems which at a minimum meet FP7 reporting requirements.

Common reporting of jointly funded projects will be of benefit for all the participating funding agencies in an ERA-NET. Common reporting will give documentation of the outcome of successful projects and demonstrate that participation in joint calls will give good value for money.

Setting up a system for common monitoring and reporting has also a cost aspect. One of the agencies in the ERA-NET will collect and analyse the reports on behalf of the whole ERA-NET. As long as the ERA-NET is a project with funding from the Framework Programme, the cost of common reporting should be included in the cost of running the ERA-NET. The coordinator of the ERA-NET, or a joint secretariat or call coordinator, should have a budget that cover these costs.

In many cases, the projects financed by joint calls in an ERA-NET will run after the funding of the ERA-NET project has ended. Provisions for securing a budget for the secretariat functions after the ending of the EC-funded ERA-NET project should be included in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) or other legal text, where the ERA-NET consortium agrees on how these costs shall be paid for.